Second cycle — Co-creation, prototyping and testing activities

The co-creation and prototyping and testing activities I conducted during the second partici- patory action research cycle were intended to enable me to learn more by further testing ideas to embed user-centred design methods and mindsets in the policymaking process, build- ing on the information I had learned in the first cycle as well as the new information I was learning from the research and problem-definition activities.

Some of the co-creation and prototyping and testing activities conducted in the second cycle were focused on expanding and extending some of the initiatives tested in the first cycle. For example, an awareness session targeting the entire policymaking community was tested, a new version of the user-centred design training programme was tested, and an enhanced user-centred design maturity model and support framework for policymakers was co-created. Other activities were focused more on testing the feasibility and potential value of embed- ding user-centred design in organisational structures, including efforts to advocate with sen- ior leaders, influence the implementation of organisational strategy, and embed user-centred design professionals within a policy team.

Workshop at the International Design in Government conference

On June 26, 2019, I co-presented to approximately 40 participants at the International Design in Government conference in Edinburgh, many of whom had long experience working in and with government agencies around the world. This was an opportunity to share much of what UCPD had learned with others in the design field interested in working more with policymak- ers, but also to develop ideas together with them about how to better communicate to poli- cymakers about user-centred design.

The stimulus we used for the ideation session was background information about the needs and goals of policymakers as well as two personas bringing to life the policymakers’ perspec- tives on engaging with users. The goal was to surface ideas from participants about how they would encourage traditional policymakers to be interested in user-centred design methods, and how they would support policymakers who were already convinced about user-centred design methods to advocate for new ways of working and get buy-in from senior leaders. To prepare for the session, I worked with a former policymaker and member of the Open Poli- cymaking Group at the Ministry of Justice, who was then a policymaker at a different govern- ment department, to develop personas for two types of policymaker: the “Old-School Policy- maker” who is resistant to new ways of working, and the “New-Age Policymaker” who is very open to new ways of working. The goal of the personas was to help workshop participants and

others to quickly understand and empathise with the perspective of both kinds of policy- maker, and so was intentionally brief. Joe, the “Old-School Policymaker”, was described as having spent 26 years in the civil service, working in the same policy area for the past eight years, and believing that consultations are the best way to find out what the public thinks about ideas. Sam, the “New-Age Policymaker”, was described as working in three policy areas over four years, going out of the office to meet stakeholders whenever she can, diving deeply into issues and sketching journey maps to understand people’s needs. Both personas were tested with UCPD and policymaking colleagues at the Ministry of Justice to validate their rep- resentativeness. The workshop presentation and agenda are included as Appendix 10. Following our introductions of the policymaker’s experience and the two personas, the work- shop participants were divided into five groups of 6-10 people each, given stimulus materials and questions to use as discussion prompts, and then fed back to the entire room. Workshop participants suggested that user-centred design professionals should make even more effort to get to know the “Old-School Policymakers” to understand their pressures and constraints and better tailor messages to them. They also suggested that case studies are very effective tools to demonstrate the benefits of working in user-centred ways, that quantifying the risks of not working in user-centred ways could provide a convincing argument for user-centred ap- proaches, and that it can be very effective to emphasise that working with user-centred de- sign methods is often more enjoyable than traditional policymaking work focused on reading and analysing reports. They noted as well that even quick demonstrations of user-centred ways of working can be very useful to raise awareness of user-centred design methods, and that it can be helpful to tell policymakers that user-centred design methods are simply ver- sions of the same information-gathering and idea-generating process they already do, but us- ing a slightly different set of inputs (i.e. interviews with users rather than discussions with ac- ademics and other policymakers). This reinforced previous findings about the importance of the approach to communications that should be used when engaging with policymakers, and corresponds with Kotter and Schlesinger’s (2008) suggestion of using communication and edu- cation to drive change in an organisation.

Participants also suggested that it can be very important to introduce people to user-centred design methods by showing them how they can adapt their existing processes slightly without having to commission outside experts — like user researchers and service designers — that they might not have budget for. For example, policymakers could be encouraged to do more visits to engage with people impacted by their policy area, and to ask different types of ques- tions, to think about the user’s experience while on the visit and while synthesising notes, and to develop simple journey maps in Excel. That can help policymakers begin to see the value in user-centred design methods immediately, while also beginning to adopt a user-cen- tred-design mindset.

User-centred design awareness sessions for policymakers

I organised a session for the UCPD team to present at the annual conference of the Ministry of Justice’s policy profession on April 4, 2019, as one of three breakout sessions held concur- rently. Approximately 50 policymakers attended. In addition to a general informational presentation I conducted, members of the UCPD team presented actual case studies and out- puts from the team’s work with policymakers over the past year, showing how we conduct user research, produce journey maps and personas, and prototype policy ideas.

This session received excellent anecdotal feedback from the participants, re-emphasising the value of sharing not just what we do, but demonstrating how we do it, to highlight how this way of working can produce greater value for policymakers in the form of qualitative infor- mation and well-crafted and well-tested ideas to solve policy challenges.

Figure 11: Presenting why and how we apply user-centred design to policymaking at the an- nual Policy Profession Conference of the Ministry of Justice

I presented and co-presented UCPD’s approach, outputs, and impacts to several other audi- ences of policymakers during this cycle as well, including to all new staff joining the policy profession as part of the monthly policy inductions; the Administrative Justice policy team; the Strategy, Implementation and Priority Projects team; and a conference of recent univer- sity graduates working in the Civil Service Faststream — the policy leaders of the future — across the Ministry of Justice and other departments.

This regular stream of presentations allowed the team to not only raise awareness across the department about user-centred ways of working, but also to continuously adapt the content we present to audiences based on feedback from the sessions, to ensure we’re offering the

most convincing arguments for the application of user-centred design methods to policymak- ing processes.

Testing a new user-centred design training programme

In August 2019 I revised and tested our user-centred design training programme for seven pol- icymakers, extending it from a half-day session focused on theory and case studies to add in a second half-day session focused on practical experimentation with user research and journey mapping.

The revised theoretical and case-study session made the links more directly between the Treasury’s ROAMEF and business case model of policymaking and the methods of user-centred design that can be applied to improve policymaking processes, demonstrated the team’s work from the past year, and emphasised the role of policymaker to use both qualitative and quan- titative evidence to educate ministers about the impacts of their proposals.

This first application of the revised training programme was met with very positive feedback. Four of the participants completed the post-training survey, all of whom saying they probably or definitely would do something different in their work as a result, citing things like building feedback loops into new policy to enable continuous evaluation; being conscious to test desir- ability of ideas in addition to feasibility and viability; mapping out processes to understand them more deeply; and advocating for user-centred design with ministers. All respondents also said they would probably or definitely engage in a longer training programme, if it were offered, as did all the participants in the training sessions during the first cycle, which indi- cates that a longer training programme on user-centred design, offered to all policymakers in the department, would likely be welcomed and impactful in changing policymakers’ mindsets and ways of working. One participant suggested that this training should be mandatory for all policymaking staff.

Co-creating personas and objectives for user-centred design in policymaking

On September 6, 2019, I conducted a 1-hour workshop with six core members of the Open Policymaking group of the Policy Profession to test, validate, and refine our understanding of policymakers’ perspectives on applying user-centred design.

The participants were chosen because they are policymakers with significant experience in the domain who understand not only the needs and motivations of policymakers, but also have some understanding of the user-centred design process as a result of their participation in the Open Policymaking group. They also were all aware of the feedback the group had re- ceived from policymakers across the department in the focus groups and surveys described

earlier in Chapter 6.3, which enabled them to co-create personas of policymakers based on extensive knowledge from both their own experiences and the research already done. The workshop also drew on the participants’ knowledge of policymakers and the user-centred policymaking process — which we called “Open Policymaking (OPM)” — to iterate the maturity model that had first been drafted during the previous research-and-design cycle and tested at the International Design in Government conference. A new maturity model was suggested and validated by the group, proposing a framework for how policymakers at the Ministry of Justice can be supported to progress from being unaware of user-centred design (referred to as Open Policymaking or OPM in this case) to eventually espousing user-centred design mindsets and integrating user-centred design methods into all their work by default.

The participants were first presented the framework — set against axes representing a policy- maker’s consciousness and competence in relation to user-centred design — which suggested a maturation process from an initial stage where policymakers know nothing about the exist- ence of user-centred design (“The unaware”) or are potentially sceptical of user-centred de- sign’s value (“The OPM sceptic”), to a stage where they know about it but still don’t know how to practice it very well (“The OPM-curious”), to a stage where they can practice it well but must consciously think about everything they are doing (“The practitioner”), to a final stage where they unconsciously apply user-centred design in everything they do (“The evan- gelist”).

The framework also proposes what kind of support policymakers would need at each stage of their maturation process to be able to apply user-centred design more effectively in their work and eventually move on to the next stage. The “unaware” and “sceptic” would benefit most from awareness sessions and trainings (indicated on the framework by the icon of a per- son instructing other people), while the “curious” and “practitioner” would benefit from a combination of trainings, tools (indicated by the icon of a puzzle piece), and bespoke support (indicated by the icon of two people linking arms), depending on the complexity of the chal- lenges they are confronting and their individual levels of awareness. The “evangelist” would still benefit from user-centred design tools, despite having already adopted a user-centred design mindset and being very familiar with the methods. I’ve used this framework, which is shown in Figure 12, as the core of a Theory of Change to guide recommendations for the UCPD team’s future activities.

Figure 12: The revised user-centred design maturity model (referring to Open Policymaking or OPM rather than "user-centred design" to connect more effectively with policymakers)

After presenting and discussing the framework, the workshop participants broke into two groups of three people, and spent thirty minutes filling out persona templates for “The una- ware”, “The OPM-sceptic”, and “The OPM-curious,” indicating what that type of policymaker tends to think about Open Policymaking, and what support would enable them to mature from their current position on the framework to the next level of user-centred design conscious- ness and competence. We chose to focus on those three types of policymaker because the group believed they represented most of the policymaking community at the Ministry of Jus- tice. After thirty minutes of group discussion, during which each group used sticky notes to fill out the persona templates they were given, each group of three fed back to the whole group of six, there was further discussion, and the small group notes were consolidated into key themes for each persona.

The group felt there was great opportunity to set the expectation for those who are new to policymaking at the Ministry of Justice that applying user-centred design is a required part of the job. The group suggested that seeds of interest in user-centred design should be planted by continuing to present at the policy inductions but also by sharing information about user- Figure 13: Images from the workshop - activities and outputs

centred design at as many other key moments as possible, including at directorate and team meetings, in the policy profession newsletter, on the intranet, at tables in the building lobby, and in line manager meetings. The group suggested developing a resource centre or hub with quick, bite-size examples of how to apply user-centred design, alongside more extensive case studies of how user-centred design methods have been applied to policy areas at the Ministry of Justice. A more extensive training package, potentially delivered through the online Civil Service Learning platform that many policymakers use for professional development, could also be considered.

While the group felt that the Open Policymaking sceptics might also benefit from awareness sessions and seeing case studies of how user-centred design has been applied to positive ef- fect at the Ministry of Justice, because many will have unfounded concerns about the applica- bility of user-centred design, which can be debunked, others will require convincing from sen- ior leaders and peers. It was suggested that senior leaders should be asked to encourage their staff to apply user-centred design methods, and user-centred design should be built into standard policymaking processes as much as possible, echoing the advice of Greenway et al. (2018) to codify digital ways of working throughout the organisation. For example, a regular bidding round for UCPD team support could be launched, so that policymakers will be regu- larly notified and encouraged to compete for the team’s support.

The key barriers for the curious policymakers were believed to be time, permission, and a lack of understanding of when to apply which user-centred design methods. The group there- fore suggested providing clear, simple guidance describing what the user-centred design methods are and when to use them. This could build on existing resources like those produced by the Department for Education (Knight 2019) or the Service Design Studio of the New York City Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (n.d.). A network of user-centred design coaches was also suggested, as those who are farther along the maturity process could be in- centivised to support those interested in learning more. It was suggested that case studies would benefit this group as well.

Finally, it was determined that direction from senior managers would be a critical factor in establishing a culture that expects user-centred design to be applied to policymaking. If that’s done, then all the different kinds of policymaker would make the effort to figure out how to apply user-centred design in their work. Leaders should emphasise that user-centred design is not a separate activity, it is simply the Ministry of Justice’s way of making policy. Many of these suggestions have been incorporated into the recommendations of this thesis project, which are described in Chapter 7.

Developing a value proposition for the User-Centred Policy Design team

Following the workshop with the Open Policymaking group of the Policy Profession, I worked with the Head of UCPD, Amanda Smith, to articulate what value proposition the team offers to the department.

Using a traditional value proposition canvas and building on the learnings from both cycles of research and testing, we first considered the primary jobs that policymakers need to accom- plish, including analysing context and providing suggestions of how to solve challenges related to their policy area, engaging with the public to ensure policy proposals are likely to meet the needs of the people impacted by the issue, preparing business cases to secure government in- vestment for policy proposals, and advising ministers. We then considered what gains policy- makers would like to achieve, including having a more complete understanding of their policy areas, being able to develop solution ideas that are more likely to meet the needs of people impacted by their policy area, and being able to develop more compelling advice to ministers and more convincing business cases. We also considered what pains policymakers often expe- rience, including the difficulties analysing very complex issues with many inter-related fac- tors that span various sectors, the lack of regular contact with and understanding of the peo- ple impacted by their issues, and the need to negotiate among many competing demands from diverse stakeholders.

We then looked at the UCPD team’s current and potential future offering to the department and identified the products and services the team offers or could offer, including trainings, awareness sessions, short consulting sessions, one-off and longer bespoke support to address policy challenges, and a user-centred design toolkit showing what methods can be used to